


Feral Creatures

by Lassenby



Category: Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (Video Games)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Minor Injuries, Piercings, minimal smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-13 06:10:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18935029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lassenby/pseuds/Lassenby





	Feral Creatures

Talion sat up against a rock, dozing shallowly. His campfire had burned down to embers. He would have preferred to sleep through the night, but dusk found him too close to an uruk stronghold, and a patrol stumbling across his unconscious body was too likely to chance. He’d only risked a campfire in the lee of a tall cliff, where the smoke would be hidden.

A nearby scuffling jolted Talion awake. His hand dropped to the hilt of his blade, and he searched for the source of the noise.

Yellow eyes watched him from just outside the fire’s light.

“Who goes there?” Talion demanded.

“Hey, Ranger,” someone rasped from the darkness. “Funny coincidence running into you, eh?”

Talion closed the distance and pressed his blade against the uruk’s throat before he recognized the voice. Ratbag swallowed hard, raising his hands in surrender.

“Just me! Just your old friend Ratbag.”

“Ratbag,” Talion scowled, hilting his blade. “This would be a strange coincidence indeed, if I believed that.”

“I’m offended, Ranger,” Ratbag said reproachfully. “I’d never lie to you. Never! But, we-ell, maybe I was hoping our paths would cross.”

Fully awake now, Talion began to notice things he’d overlooked. Ratbag always hunched when he stood, but now he bent nearly double, clutching his abdomen. Black blood glistened in the firelight.

“Let me see,” Talion said.

“On second thought? It’s nothing.” Ratbag’s complexion seemed more waxy than usual, though it was difficult to tell with orcs. “Take more’n a flesh wound to put Ratbag down for good.”

Talion grabbed the uruk’s wrists - shockingly thin wrists, Talion noticed, his fingers wrapping all the way around easily - and pulled his arms outward, revealing a deep slash running from Ratbag’s right shoulder down to his left hip. His chestplate hung lose from his shoulders, snapped in half. Black blood pulsed steadily from the gash.

“Flesh wound? You’ve been gutted like a fish!”

“Ah, this little scratch? I can barely feel it,” Ratbag insisted, but yelped and writhed in Talion’s grip when the ranger prodded testingly at the slash.

“How did this happen?”

“You know how politics are.” Ratbag spat angrily in the dirt. “Warchief Gubu thought I would make a better caragor toy than a captain.”

“Uruk politics sound quite different than those of men.”

“So, of course, I’m not going to stick around and wait for those backstabbers to smell blood in the water. Just have to lay low for awhile, ‘til I sort myself out.”

“And bleed to death, most likely. How were you planning to bandage this wound?”

“Well...”

“Let me guess. This is where I come in?”

With a strange splitting sensation, Celebrimbor stepped out of Talion’s body. The spectral blue elf crossed his arms and scowled at Talion.

“We’ve wasted enough time on this one.”

Talion looked critically at Ratbag. While the orc’s advice had led Talion to his first victory against an uruk captain, he’d achieved many more successes since, without any more help. And while Ratbag had been more helpful and less attempted-murder-y than most uruks Talion had met, he was still an uruk. A foul, conniving creature, a minion of the Black Hand.

And yet…

“You remind me of something,” Talion mused. “Or someone. I can’t put my finger on it.”

“While you try and figure that out, I’ll just go bleed out beside those rocks, shall I?”

Talion sighed. “Undress to the waist, orc.”

Ratbag’s eyes shot wide. “What?”

“Your armor is beyond useless. It’s in the way. I need to have a better look at your injuries.”

“Right. ‘course.” Ratbag shrugged off the remains of his armor, unclamped the collar of jutting bone from around his shoulders and dropped it on the ground.

First, Talion nursed the fire. When it burned bright enough to see by, he inspected Ratbag’s wound and discovered the slash wasn’t as deep as he’d first thought. The black blood was deceptive, when Talion’s experience lay in gauging the injuries of red blooded men.

“Nothing vital is damaged,” he said. “You’ll be fine.”

“Bad news for old Gubu, then,” Ratbag said, grinning. The grin twisted into a grimace as Talion swabbed the wound with an alcohol soaked rag. “Argh!”

“Stop squirming,” Talion ordered.

He could see Ratbag trying hard to obey the command. The uruk stood with his narrow shoulders squared and chest stuck out. His face was drawn, tight with pain.

When Talion touched the stinging rag to the slash again, Ratbag only gave the slightest cringe. He scrunched his eyes shut while Talion finished cleaning the wound.

Talion realized that this was the longest, closest look he’d ever gotten at an orc. Most of the time, his view was masked by a flurry of blades and bows, and afterward, his opponents were carved deep by mortal wounds. Certainly Talion never lingered long enough to inspect them.

But while he wrapped a bandage around and around Ratbag’s torso, he was struck by how few physical differences there were between uruk hai and men. Even the orc’s nipples were strangely ordinary, albeit pierced by twin metal hoops, the sight of which made Talion glance away quickly. By firelight, green skin might have been merely olive. Ratbag’s jutting ribs and hitching chest seemed more pitiable than off-putting.

“There,” Talion said, almost softly. He cleared his throat and added, more harshly, “You’re done.”

“Thank you, Ranger.” Ratbag glanced away. “I owe you.”

“Many times over, yes.” A smile crept into the corner’s of Talions lips.

“Oy, don’t you worry about that. Ratbag pays back what he owes. Speaking of payback...I need to visit to a particular warchief and his pets.”

Ratbag started to turn away, but Talion caught him by the arm.

“Not tonight. Probably not for awhile.”

“Eh? You said I was fine!”

“Well, you’re not dying,” Talion said, bemused. “But you’re hardly in fighting form. Rest for the night, at least, and I’ll help you get your revenge in the morning.”

“Really?” Ratbag asked suspiciously. “You mean it?”

“Of course. You owe me so many debts, what difference does one more make?” Talion prodded the campfire. “If you’d like to repay me, perhaps you could start by keeping watch tonight.”

“Sure thing, Ranger. You go ahead and get your beauty sleep.”

Celebrimbor, who had been watching the scene with undisguised contempt, finally spoke up. “You can't be serious! You would trust this...feral creature- with your life?”

“Even if a patrol does ambush me while I sleep, I’m sure we can regain the upper-hand,” Talion said. Then looking at Ratbag, added- “ _And_ , I’ll know who to blame.”

“No ambushes,” Ratbag said. “You can count on Ratbag.”

“Do as you wish,” Celebrimbor snapped. “But I won’t hear any moaning when your ‘friend’ inevitably betrays you.”

 

But the next morning found Ratbag still standing vigil - or at least, sitting vigil - on the outskirts of camp. In the morning sunlight, Talion could see dark bags of exhaustion under the orc’s eyes.

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” Ratbag grunted. “Just bored out of my skull.”

“I meant your injuries. Are you in pain?”

“Oh! No, no, that’s all right.” Ratbag yawned widely, showing off an impressive array of jagged teeth.

“Sleep,” Talion ordered. “I’ll take a turn at watch.”

“You’ll watch? Watch for what?”

“Other uruks. You don’t seem very popular among your own kind.”

“That’s not- I’m not some kind of outcast, nothing like that,” Ratbag snapped. “Uruk hai aren’t so soft as men, with all sort of... _mercy,_ and _kindness._ ” Saying the words ‘mercy’ and ‘kindness’ in tones more commonly used for ‘foul stench’ or ‘oozing pustules’.

“Alright,” Talion conceded, laughing. “Then I’ll just mind my own business over there for awhile, shall I? And if any unfriendly looking uruks should approach, I may shout, for my own benefit, loud enough for anyone sleeping nearby to hear.”

“I mean, if that’s what you want.” Ratbag yawned and slumped back against the rocks. He’d passed out within a minute.

True to his word, Talion remained close by for the next few hours while Ratbag slept. He snuck occasional glances at his unlikely ally. Asleep, Ratbag looked even more fragile than usual. Talion wondered at the orc’s comparatively small stature. Did Uruk hai birth litters, and if so, could he be a runt?

Ratbag slept in a loose curl, without bedroll or blanket. Talion briefly considered laying his own cloak over the orc’s huddled figure, but shook off the thought. He could only imagine what Celebrimbor would say about that.

“You stayed,” Ratbag said to Talion after waking, vague wonderment in his voice.

“I told you I would.” Talion unsheathed his sword. “And now, to deal with your warlord.”

 

An hour later found Talion deep in the uruk stronghold, battling against wave after wave of enemy orcs- but not the warchief. Warchief Gubu was nowhere in sight.

“You said he would be here!” Talion shouted to be heard over the clash of swords.

“And you ought to know by now, I’m not privy to that kind of information!” Ratbag called back.

“There are too many to fight.”

“Right, okay! Hang on.”

Rolling aside to avoid a volley of arrows, Talion landed in a crouch just in time to see Ratbag slip away behind the a nearby parapet.

Talion couldn’t help the dagger of disappointment that slipped between his ribs, just as he stuck a very real dagger into an uruk’s chest and pinned him to the ground.

 _I did warn you_ , Celebrimbor’s voice wheedled in the back of Talion’s mind.

An uruk twice the size of Ratbag stepped up and swung an ax toward Talion’s head. He barely raised his sword in time to block. The force of the blow knocked his blade aside, and he awkwardly ducked another uruk’s flail.

“Is this really the time for I-told-you-so’s?” he muttered.

Suddenly, a caragor thundered around the corner and leaped upon the nearest uruk, savagely tearing with long, sharp fangs. A ripple of surprise and fear went through the other uruks as two more of the massive beasts followed the first, muscles rippling beneath pale fur.

From the direction where the caragors had appeared, a skinny orc came running along the wall.

While panic and rampaging caragors tore through the enemy ranks, Talion vaulted up onto a crate and scaled the wall. Crouching to avoid being spotted, he made his way quickly toward where he saw Ratbag heading.

They met up in the shadow of a tower.

“I found him,” Ratbag said hurriedly. “Gubu. That maggot breeding son of a tark... ah, no offence, of course.”

“Of course,” Talion said dryly.

“How’d you like my escape plan, by the way?”

“The caragors,” Talion realized. “It was you who released them.”

“You can thank me later. We’ve gotta catch up to Gubu the Grotesque before he can slip away again.”

Choosing not to remark that Ratbag seemed to be the one who escaped when he and the warchief last met up, Talion followed Ratbag out the other side of the tower. They moved in the shadows until Warchief Gubu and his bodyguards came into sight.

“There he is,” Ratbag hissed, unnecessarily. The warchief’s band was easy to spot- a massive orc with an imperious looking battle-axe, bookended by two slightly less massive uruks wearing the same style of armor.

The leading Uruk’s face looked like ground meat, riddled with squirming white worms.

“Maggot breeding son of a tark,” Talion muttered. “I see that the maggot part was based in truth.”

“Disgusting, innit?” Ratbag shuddered. “I mean, he’s got to hear that all the time. But when I innocently mention that his face makes me wanna puke my guts out-”

“You did what? No wonder he tried to feed you to his pets. For such a puny orc, you’re too mouthy by far.”

“That’s what people keep telling me,” Ratbag agreed. “Now, are we going to kill this bastard, or what?”

Talion leaped down on the first bodyguard by surprise, killing him instantly with a blade plunged into his spine. The other fled in terror, leaving the warchief alone.

“Gravewalker! I’d hoped I would get to face you before my flesh is consumed,” Gubu gloated.

Despite the size of the warchief’s great-axe, he handled the weapon with surprising deftness, spinning the handle to block all of Talion’s blows. Focused intently on getting past Gubu’s defenses, Talion didn’t hear the other uruk come up from behind.

“Ranger, look out!” Ratbag shouted.

Talion whirled around to see an uruk bearing down with a hammer raised high, and slashed his attacker across the middle. The uruk fell backward off the platform with a surprised gurgle.

“Ratbag,” Warchief Gubu chortled. “I should have known.”

“That I would be back to cut your disgusting throat?” Ratbag snarled.

“Hah!” the warchief said. “I meant, I knew you’d bring someone stronger to fight your battles for you. You pathetic, cowardly piece of- arrrghkk!”

Warchief Gubu’s severed head rolled across the platform and came to a stop beneath Ratbag’s boot.

“Excellent teamwork,” Ratbag said.

Talion shook the blood off his sword before sheathing it. “How so?”

“I keep him talking, you cut off his head. Oldest trick in the book.”

“Hmm.” Talon watched as Ratbag went to work eagerly sawing off the warchief's ear with a dull-looking dagger. “You did warn me about the one sneaking up from behind. For that, I owe you.”

Ratbag waved a dismissive hand. “Like you said, Ranger. What’s one more?”

 

A few nights later, while crouched beside his campfire, Talion heard familiar footsteps behind him. He didn’t bother to turn around as the uruk approached.

Something dropped into the snow beside him. Talion looked down and found himself eye to eye with an enormous dead rat. He looked up at Ratbag, one eyebrow raised.

“Dinner,” Ratbag said, by way of explanation. He slid down to sit near the fire, arms wrapped around his bent knees.

Talion picked up his dagger and began to skin the rat, working the blade’s tip in between membrane and meat.

“What are you doing?” Celebrimbor asked, suddenly materialized across the fire from Talion.

“Cooking.”

“You know that you no longer need to eat to sustain yourself. Or sleep, for that matter. These are unnecessary distractions.” Though Celebrimbor seemed to be talking about physiological distractions, his eyes flicked to Ratbag, who was now watching Talion curiously.

“Unnecessary, perhaps,” Talion admitted, jamming his knife all the way through the skinned rat from neck to tail. He held the skewer over the flames and turned it slowly. “But our reflexes dull after too many days without rest. You know this to be true.”

“But eating!” the wraith insisted. “What possible reason could you have for choking down this vile carcass?”

Talion wasn’t sure, exactly. But he said; “It would be rude not to.”

“Rude to who? The _orc?_ ” Celebrimbor barked a condescending laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Who are you talking to?” Ratbag asked.

“It would be difficult to explain.”

“Oh, I get it. You know, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I had an imaginary friend, too, back I was a whelp.” Ratbag scratched his head. “Maybe even a wee bit longer.”

“An imaginary…no. Celebrimbor is not imaginary, and I would scarcely consider him a friend.”

“Why, Talion,” Celebrimbor said. “You wound me.”

“Whatever you say, Ranger,” Ratbag said, and tore into the lump of charred rat that Talion had just handed him. Through a mouthful of meat, he added- “But I’m not gonna judge. Your secrets are safe with Ratbag.”

Celebrimbor grimaced at Ratbag’s smacking, chewing sounds, and his chin shiny with grease. Before ghosting out of the physical plane, he remarked;

“Talion, you mustn’t feed the strays, or they’ll never leave you alone.”

Talion only picked at his food, while Ratbag practically inhaled the rest of the meal. Afterward, Ratbag sat back with a satisfied groan and proceeded to suck the grease off each finger individually. With his thumb still in his mouth, he noticed Talion staring.

“What?” Ratbag demanded.

Talion blinked. “Ah?”

“What’re you looking at?”

“I was just...wondering about your injuries. How are they healing?”

“Not bad. Itches a bit under the armor on hot days, but it don’t hurt at all.”

“I’d better take a look. Make certain that you’re healing properly.”

“Oh, is that the reason?” Ratbag said. Despite the skepticism in his voice, he was already unbuckling his armor.

“What are you implying?” Talion said, a warning edge in his tone.

“Nothing, nothing. I’m just rambling. You know Ratbag, always mouthing off about something.”

The orc scooted closer to Talion, within arm’s reach. He lounged back with his weight supported on his hands, so Talion could get a clear look at the long stretch of his torso.

True to Ratbag’s word, the wound was healing quickly. A ragged band of new skin ran down the length of his body. Talion lightly touched the injury and felt swelling, puffy edges along the scar, but nothing to be concerned with. Just the natural effects of healing.

As his fingers ghosted across the skin, Ratbag shivered.

“Did I hurt you?” Talion asked.

“No,” Ratbag replied, his voice a quiet rasp. He cleared his throat. “Ah, so? How’s it look?”

“You’re not dying.”

“Well, there’s a relief. Hard to enjoy a promotion to warchief when you’re dead.”

Talion returned his gaze to the fire, with Ratbag sitting companionably beside him. The orc picked his teeth with a rat bone, making no move to return to his old position or to redress.

A few minutes later, Talion broke the silence.

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

Ratbag raised an eyebrow. “How personal?”

“Your piercings. I noticed them when I was tending to your injuries. What is their purpose? And why there, of all places?”

Ratbag looked down at his chest. “What, these?” He flicked one of the metal loops.

Talion nodded. “Are they ceremonial?”

“No, no. They’re for...you know. It feels good.”

“Really?” Talion looked bemused. “I can’t imagine it feeling good to be skewered in such a sensitive place.”

Ratbag wheezed a laugh. “Don’t like getting skewered in your sensitive places, eh? Each to his own. Sorry, what were we…? Right. Of course, these didn’t feel so great at first. But after they healed up, sure. Especially when someone tugs on them a bit.”

Talion pointedly avoided Ratbag’s gaze, his face feeling warmer than the fire could account for. “I don’t know why I asked.”

“I got other piercings, if you’re still curious. Wanna see?” Ratbag tugged at the hem of his pants.

“No, thank you, no,” Talion said hurriedly.

“Suit yourself.”

A short time after that, Ratbag excused himself with a stretch and yawn. Talion half expected him to curl up near the fire and go to sleep. Instead, Ratbag squirmed into his armor and left, footsteps retreating into the night.

Talion was disturbed by his own feelings of disappointment. Had he wanted Ratbag to stay? Perhaps Celebrimbor was right to warn him away from the orc. The last thing he needed was this strange, unhealthy attachment.

 

Over the next weeks, Talion ran into Ratbag many more times; which is to say, Ratbag would appear, slinking along behind Talion to loot the corpses of uruks he’d slain, or strut up to his campfire to proudly gift the ranger with some dead thing or other.

On one night, Talion had just begun to set up camp when Ratbag showed up.

“Hey, Ranger! Don’t bother with that. Come on, follow me.”

In the back of Talion’s mind, Celebrimbor groaned. _I suppose we’ll be obeying this orc’s commands?_

“Where are you leading me?” Talion demanded.

Ratbag shushed him with a finger to his lips. “Keep your voice down!”

“This had better not be a trap, orc,” Talion said, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. “Or it will go very poorly for you.”

“Still don’t trust me, huh? After all we’ve been through together?”

When Talion didn’t reply, Ratbag sighed.

“It’s just a small camp, one of my patrols. I don’t like these particular whingers. So I was thinking, you’d go in, do your thing-” Ratbag demonstrated with a finger drawn across the throat. “-and then you won't have to make camp tonight. It’ll be all done up for us.”

As they grew closer, Talion could hear gruff voices raised in drunken celebration.

“Your pet tells the truth,” Celebrimbor said, his wraith form suddenly walking alongside Talion. “I sense no more than four orcs.”

“He is not my pet,” Talion said.

Ratbag looked back at him with an eyebrow raised. “Wassat?”

Talion didn’t answer, and Ratbag didn’t press further. They were nearing the camp. The voices of the orcs grew louder.

Ratbag’s plan went off just as predicted. Crouching in the long grass, Talion silently dispatched the first orc who went off to relieve himself, followed by another who came to see what was taking so long.

Talion sighted the two remaining orcs with his bow and put an arrow through the neck of the larger orc. When his friend turned to see what he meant by ‘gurgle gurgle’, Talion shot the last orc through the eye. He slumped over dead.

Ratbag scurried into the campsite. He stepped hard on the neck of a dead uruk, snarled something in black speech and spit on the corpse’s face.

“Friend of yours?” Talion asked.

“He’s nobody,” Ratbag said darkly, his tone discouraging further questions.

After investigating the campsite further, Ratbag discovered a nearly full keg of grog and poured two mugs full to frothing over the sides. He thrust one at Talion, who hesitantly took the proffered drink.

Talion sniffed at it. “Smells like piss.”

“Tastes like piss, too. But it’ll get you off your ass faster than anything else.”

Ratbag downed his mug in a few long pulls. It took Talion significantly longer just to choke down the first swig of foul liquid.

“What are you _doing?_ ” Celebrimbor asked. “Or do you even know? Honestly, you humans are inscrutable.”

Talion scowled. “My family is dead. I am barred from joining them by the stuck-up wraith who shares my body, and I spend all day, every day, slogging through blighted lands and uruk hai corpses.” Talon tilted back his mug, draining it to the dregs before he had to take a breath. “I’d say I’m overdue for a drink.”

“Cheers to that,” Ratbag said.

Talion wasn’t even sure if alcohol could affect him, anymore. Over the next hour he learned that he could, in fact, still get drunk.

“Your, your, uh…” Talion slurred, struggling to stay aboard his train of thought. “Your piercings.”

“You’re on about that again?”

“No, not those. The other, the uh, face ones. And your ears. They look a bit…” Talion gesture wildly. “...nice.”

Ratbag glanced suspiciously at Talion from the corner of his eye. “Thanks?”

“You know, when I was a young man, I had considered a piercing myself.”

“Seriously?”

Talion chuckled. “Seriously. My best mate had a hoop, just here,” he said, pointing to the fleshy part of the lobe. “It looked quite handsome.”

“That’d look great on you,” Ratbag said, sloshing his fourth overfull mug of grog in Talion’s direction.

“You think?” Talon rubbed the spot between his fingers, trying to picture it.

“Hey! Let me pierce your ear. I’ll use your dagger- mine’s not so sharp, y’know, wear and tear- and I’ll just poke a liiiiiitle hole, and you can get a hoop, just like your old mate’s.”

“I don’t know.”

“Ah, c’mon! You know you want to.”

Talion hesitated. Really, what did he have to lose? He had no family to impress, no mates to tease him if it wound up looking silly. And it was hard to think critically through the haze of alcohol.

“Do it.”

Ratbag’s face split in a wide grin.

Talion drew his dagger and, after a beat of reluctance, held it out to Ratbag.

Celebrimbor raged like a storm around them.

“You are behaving like an UTTER FOOL!”

Ratbag received the dagger with ceremonial care. He sidled closer, almost straddling Talion’s lap.

“It would serve you right if this orc were to drive your own dagger through your neck!” Celebrimbor howled.

“This one?” Ratbag asked, fingering Talion’s earlobe.

“Yes.”

“NO!” Celebrimbor shouted.

Ratbag lined up the dagger, pressing the tip lightly against the skin.

“Imbecile!”

Talion closed his eyes.

A brief stab of pain blossomed in his ear, just where he’d instructed Ratbag to peirce. His eyelids fluttered open.

“Does it hurt?” Ratbag asked in a rusty croak. His cheeks were a darker, muddy hue, which Talion dimly recognised as a blush.

“No.” Talion reached up to his ear. He felt wetness and inspected his fingers. They glistened red in the firelight.

“Sorry. Might’a pressed too hard. You’ve got a little…just there.”

Ratbag leaned forward. Before Talion could register his intent, the orc was licking away the blood. His tongue dragged slowly over the newly pierced flesh, blowing hot breath into the shell of his ear.

Talion shoved him away. “What are you doing?”

“I thought…” Ratbag snarled and shook this head. “You have some real issues, Ranger.”

“Me?” Talion asked indignantly. “You just licked me!”

“Are you telling me that tarks don’t use their tongues for nothing besides running their mouths? ‘cos if that’s the case, when you screw, it must be extremely loud and unsatisfying!”

Before Talion’s grog-addled brain could process that statement, Ratbag tossed his dagger back to him and stormed away.

Talion sat alone and prodded at the slightly sore hole in his ear. He realized, with a measure of confusion and shame, that he was painfully aroused, and all he could think about was the phantom pressure of a certain orc on his lap, and of Ratbag’s mouth, wet and hot against his skin.

 

A few days later, on a cruelly cold night night that froze his breath into fog, Talion slept beneath his cloak. He awoke to sounds of movement in his campsite and reached automatically for his blade. When he spotted the two amber eyes staring out of the darkness, Talion groaned and withdrew his hand.

“Ratbag.”

“Ranger.” Ratbag hesitated, then came closer to crouch beside Talion. “Can I...?”

At first, Talion didn’t know what the orc wanted. Then he noticed how Ratbag was shivering, hugging himself against the cold.

Talion lifted the edge of his cloak. “Come on, then,” he urged impatiently.

Ratbag scuttled under the cloak, and Talion let it fall down to cover them both. Again, he was struck with that sensation of familiarity, almost deja-vu, but couldn’t place what he was reminded of.

Ratbag wriggled closer, and Talion didn’t stop him.

He scarcely dared to breathe.

Ratbag might have been cold out in the snow, but under Talion’s cloak, he was warm. A warm body nearly pressed up against his. When Ratbag rolled over to face away from Talion, he wriggled backward, fitting neatly against the curve of the ranger’s body.

Talion didn’t tell him to move.

He carefully averted his gaze from the nape of Ratbag’s neck, where his hair had fallen aside. Away from the delicate whorls of his skin, the steady rise and fall of shoulder blades jutting out above the hem of the cloak.

Maybe the orc would sleep too deeply to notice the firmness pressed up between them. Talion tried to convince himself that was what he wanted.

He couldn’t. In spite of attempts to will his gaze away, it lingered on the surprisingly delicate curve of Ratbag’s ear just inches from his face. He couldn’t help a flicker of hope that the orc would feel the arousal that his nearness caused in Talion, and that he would reciprocate.

Talion braced himself for Celebrimbor’s admonition. It never came. Could the wraith have remained asleep? That the elf’s consciousness might be preoccupied elsewhere seemed too good to be true.

Slowly, his fingers trembling for reasons besides the cold, Talion rested his knuckles lightly against the curve of Ratbag’s neck.

The orc sighed and shifted slightly. Still asleep?

It wouldn’t be the first time Talion had these feelings for another male. Before Loreth, he’d had other lovers, both men and women. But never an orc. He wasn’t sure if any man had ever lain with uruk hai. It was unequivocally wrong, and yet...

Talion stroked Ratbag’s shoulder, tracing a whorl with his thumb.

“Ranger?” Ratbag said in a sleep-slurred voice.

Talion tried to retract his hand, but Ratbag caught it. The orc lightly pressed a kiss against Talion’s knuckles.

The gesture sent a lighting strike of arousal through Talion, followed by a thunderous rumble of tenderness that made him feel weak. Hesitantly, Talion bowed his head to close the inches between them.

Ratbag’s pulse quickened beneath the ranger’s lips.

“Is this okay?” Talion murmured against his skin, not understanding why he did. He’d never asked an orc permission for anything before. But this was different.

This wasn’t just any orc. Ratbag was _his_ orc.

Ratbag hummed his consent, and Talion wrapped an arm around his waist, hand sliding up to play with nipple rings that had so fixed his attention. He was rewarded by Ratbag’s sharp intake of breath and his body arching back against Talion’s.

Flat palm traveling downward, across prominent ribs and concave stomach, then further, slipping beneath the hem of Ratbag’s pants. Talion explored the orc’s other piercings by touch, lightly nudging each metal stud in turn. Ratbag whined, bucking into Talion’s hand.

Suddenly, Celebrimbor appeared a few feet away. He stood this his back turned to Talion.

“I suppose you’ll say you are overdue for _this_ , as well?”

Talion said nothing.

“And I see little point in appealing to your sense of morality, shame, or common sense, as you obviously have none. So…” Celebrimbor sighed. “I’ll just take a walk, shall I?”

The wraith walked away, fading with every step until he’d vanished completely.

Talion wondered where the elf had gone. Their essential tether must have remained intact, or else Talion would have perished, so he couldn’t have gone far. But Talion was relieved to have this privacy, and grateful that Celebrimbor had gone without argument.

He returned his attention to the orc in his arms, who squirmed impatiently against him. Languorously stroking up and down Ratbag’s length, Talion pressed his own clothed erection against the orc’s rear.

“You can breed me,” Ratbag said, glancing over his shoulder. “If you want. I, for one, don’t mind being skewered in my sensitive places.”

“Foul-mouthed orc,” Talion said, grinning in spite of himself..

“Filthy tark.”

With elbows hooked beneath skinny knees, concealed beneath Talion’s cloak draped over his shoulders, they screwed until the outside world was eclipsed by pleasure, everything silent except for their mingled grunts and heavy breathing. Drops of sweat melted divots into the snow.

Ratbag’s arms slid around Talion’s shoulders, fingernails clawing at his back. Talion barely felt the sting.

Afterward, they lay in a tangle beneath the cloak, sweat chilling quickly in the winter air. Ratbag’s gaze lingered on Talion’s ear, the one he’d put a hole in just a few night before.

“You gotta put something it it,” he said, tugging the lobe gently. “Or it’ll close up.”

“I don’t have anything,” Talion said. He didn’t mention the other reason; that after he’d sobered up, the whole idea seemed ridiculous.

Ratbag fussed with his own ear for a moment. When he took his hand away, Talion realized he’d removed one of his earrings. Ratbag prodded the steel through the tiny hole in Talion’s ear and pinched the hoop to bend it shut.

“There,” he said. “Now you don’t look like a silly git with too many holes in him.”

“How do I look?”

Ratbag studied him critically. “Dead sexy. For a tark, anyway.”

“And you are the least repulsive orc I’ve ever met,” Talion said, and tugged Ratbag’s ear teasingly.

His touch lingered there, fingers tracing along cartilage, across the hole without it’s ring, until he came to a notch. An old injury healed to a ragged edge.

All of a sudden, he remembered.

“I know who you remind me of.” Talion said.

“Yeah?”

“I used to have this cat. Actually, he was a stray. The mangiest, most flea-bitten tom you’ve ever seen. Just a little scrap of a thing, nothing but scars and ribs, with a mean streak a mile long.”

“Ah, so it’s a flattering comparison,” Ratbag said dryly.

“You don’t understand. I _loved_ that wretched creature. And I think he loved me, in his own way. He would always sneak into the house to leave presents for me. Dead birds and rats, you know. Sort of like you do. And he would crawl into my bed, much to my wife’s displeasure.”

Talion smiled distantly at the memory. “That little bastard scratched everyone, except for me.”

He shifted slightly, and winced. His shoulders and back burned where the fabric rubbed against them. Talion remembered Ratbag’s sharp nails digging into skin.

“I see that you have no such scruples,” Talion added.

Ratbag laughed unapologetically and wriggled closer, bumping his head under Talion’s chin. Talion folded him into his arms.

He felt himself growing drowsy in their warm hollow beneath his cloak, despite the cacophony of Ratbag’s snores. Dimly, he thought about how he’d been wrong before. Ratbag wasn’t his orc. Ratbag belonged to no-one, just like the stray tom in his old life. Maybe he would saunter off tomorrow and never return, or get himself killed by picking fights with the wrong enemies out in a dangerous world, where Talion couldn’t always be around to protect him.

Ratbag didn’t belong to him, nor did he belong to Ratbag. But tonight, he had chosen Talion to curl up beside, sharing the warmth of his small, wiry body.

And that was enough.

 


End file.
